Posted on 02/14/2015 4:07:50 AM PST by shove_it
The smoke surrounding rumors of an Apple-branded vehicle has begun to thicken, as a new report says that Apple is indeed working on an all-electric vehicle that would take the shape of a minivan, with a huge team tasked to the project.
Apple has given the project codename "Titan," according to the Wall Street Journal. The company is said to have "several hundred" employees working in the group.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly green-lighted the project almost a year ago, and company executives have already begun to meet with potential contract manufacturers, including Canadian firm Magna Steyr. Apple iPod and iPhone designer Steve Zadesky, formerly of Ford, is said to be running the project.
The team — which has its own development facility away from the main Infinite Loop campus — could eventually swell to some 1,000 employees, and Zadesky has been given free reign to pull talent from any existing Apple group. Zadesky's group is reportedly researching "robotics, metals and materials consistent with automobile manufacturing."
The Journal's report follows hours after a similar missive from the Financial Times, which revealed a "top-secret research lab" staffed with automotive executives. Among those who have made the move is former Mercedes-Benz R&D head Johann Jungwirth, who joined Apple as a Mac systems engineering leader last fall.
Apple design chief Jony Ive is believed to have been personally recruiting automotive executives. Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed earlier that Apple has tried "very hard" to poach engineers from the electric carmaker, offering $250,000 bonuses and 60 percent pay raises.
Rumors of an Apple-branded vehicle have been around for years, but began to gather steam when Apple was revealed as the company behind a fleet of mysterious sensor-laden vans which have appeared around the U.S. in recent months. Those vans, which are almost certainly designed for data collection to augment Apple's mapping service, are unlikely to be directly related to any potential vehicle project, which is likely years away from production.
actually, the business relation is with the Chicaps
Correct. And the Federal Government is supposes to protect the entire country from deleterious trade practices. Read US history and you will get it. Unfettered commerce between the states, tightly controlled trade with the rest of the world.
I am in favor of Apple currently paying the taxes they have.
Bring profits back to America.
Apple just raked in the money last quarter. Square away with the US government, and bring home the business.
That is my point. It may or may not be pro-taxation, but American is currently 18 trillion dollars in debt, that is increasing every year, yet neither party is doing a single thing to BRING BACK AMERICAN JOBS.
That is my point. My entire point.
American jobs.
Go to China and protest the Govt in Tienanmen Square and get back to me.
Ford dumped Sync after all.
Don’t disagree at all... Your post is smack on correct....
I actually do get...
Yeah, a car seems a bit far afield from their present business. Whatever it is, though ... in order for Apple to be following the same pattern it always has ... it has to be “hardware” ... which is then supported by their software.
Apple’s software is not mainly what they are selling, although it’s an important and critical part of their business. Apple is a hardware company, which then develops great software to support the hardware they are selling.
It’s gotta be hardware that they are developing.
That will happen when the US educational system begins again to produce workers able to make hi-tech items, instead of seeking positions fostering social justice and non-violent understandings etc, while receiving welfare and food stamps.
The US will also need to produce people capable of writing coherent English - from a recent job application applying for a position in India which the 45 year old female writer denigrates in favor of a position in Peru:
“My education has been custom-tailored to include work experience and creative expression as well as structured pedagogies ... As a Comparative History of Ideas major, I am building upon my intersectional understanding of the world ... I cultivated musicianship ... which is informing a sensitized approach to the “progress” of post-colonial development and globalization ... While I believe that the India program is a good fit for me, I understand that others may seem a better fit for such an intimate journey as described. I acknowledge that I am also applying to a simultaneous program bound for Peru ... returned to school in order to increase my knowledge base as well as to empower a sense of agency in the world ... I imagine weaving together intercultural and non-violent communication, creative expression, social and environmental justice, traditional and modern medicine ... What I hope to gain from experience abroad is an expansion of my awareness ...” and so on. It is all about her, not what she can contribute or do helping others. I’d advise her not to give up her day job, if she had one ...
AAPL is avoiding the lowering standard of American workers.
Right now AAPL makes the Mac Pro in Texas.
“Regenerative braking” (commonly called “hybrid”) makes tremendous sense in stop and go city driving.
Actually, I think Tim Cook and Jonathan Ive are trying to prove they can change a piece of the world without Steve Jobs. A car would be pretty far reaching, but it would fit the bill.
Better yet change the damned, most vile American taxation system. You sound like a troll — they are not doing their “fair share” and voluntarily paying more taxes. That’s horse sh!t thinking. Save your outrage for Charles Rangel.
Besides, the number of US jobs created by Apple is staggering. The high-value intellectual work is done here. The low value stuffing parts onto PCBs is done overseas.
You and CNN are both wrong.
If Apple could make a huge profit manufacturing in the USA, then why don’t they? Answer: they can’t make huge profits, or even any profit, doing that.
Also, why do you and CNN act like the only jobs that exist are ones involving screwing lug nuts onto cars?
Well said! CNN and his Communist friends at the Union Hall need to realize that companies have gone offshore because of hem, not despite them.
Out government imposes a self-defeating and punitive tax regime on all American companies with overseas operations. Overseas operations are like exports - they bring money to the country, or they would if weren’t for the government’s confiscatory tax policies. Our tax policies make it prohibitively expensive to hire Americans to fill positions overseas as well, that’s why so many American companies recruit their management staff from Australia or England.
If you want American companies to repatriate their profits, don’t confiscate them. You are barking up the wrong tree when you impugn Apple’s patriotism; you ought to looking at the pinkos running our government.
You want Americans to have jobs. You should study the numbers first:
The numbers at a glance
1,027,000 U.S. jobs created or supported by Apple. Yes, ONE MILLION!!
627K Jobs attributable to the iOS ecosystem
334K Jobs at other companies resulting from Apple’s spending and growth
66K Apple employees in the U.S.
Do you realize that 2/3 million jobs were created from scratch starting just seven years ago? What’s the government done in the same time? Doubled food stamp rolls from 25 million to 50 million.
You would make yourself sound better if you were more informed.
You really believe that? The labor per phone is miniscule compared to the total retail price whether it is mad in USA or China or anywhere else.
So in addition to the taxes they pay you also want to impose a tax on their profits. You may want to read a econ 101 book and pay attention to the definition of profits.
You do not know what you are talking about.
There’s an analogy to that in getting old, I suspect.
Tell,Elon Musk “it can’t be done.” What’s with all the defeatism on this thread? Where’s the unbounded optimism conservatives should be known for? This is starting to read like DU or Kos.
I’m not going to criticize Apple for doing what every manufacturer of desktop, laptop and tablet computers, cell phones and the like does. I will give them credit for hiring more Americans from hourly on up the line than any other. Just one look at the huge server farm here in NC tells me that they’re far from offshoring every single thing. They don’t. Their top of the line desktop is entirely American-made. Who else can claim this?
If they’re going to build a car, more power to them, they’re brilliant engineers, industrial designers and have a unique knack for human interface that is really unsurpassed in the world today. I have my doubts that they’re actually building a car myself, though. Componentry for cars, sure. But the whole thing? Don’t know about that. It’ll be an awesome, game-changing thing if they do though. We’ll be looking at cars before Apple entered the fray, and after Apple just as was the case with every other thing they’ve ever done.
Apple is very disruptive and in a good way, we’ve all benefitted, even those who love to hate Apple. Their favorites are heavily Apple-inspired whether they’re willing to admit this or not.
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